“Powering Eastbourne, one gigabyte at a time”: A conversation with our Event Partners, Lightning Fibre
Ahead of this year's Eastbourne DigiFest, we spoke to Emma Pearce, Head of Marketing at Lightning Fibre, about building Eastbourne's own broadband network, climbing into the UK's top connectivity rankings, and why the town has plenty to be proud of.
Tell us about yourselves. What’s Lightning Fibre all about?
"Lightning Fibre is Eastbourne's and East Sussex's most local full fibre broadband network operator and ISP (Internet Service Provider) for residential homes and business premises," says Emma. "Back in 2018, we started building our own full fibre broadband network - and we were headquartered in Eastbourne from the start. We now provide hyperfast broadband to a number of towns including Eastbourne, Polegate, Hailsham, Heathfield, Bexhill, Hastings, St Leonard's and Tenterden.
"For residential homes, we also offer digital home phone lines (VoIP) and WiFi extenders. For businesses Lightning Fibre provides high-performance, secure and reliable full fibre business broadband, and dedicated leased lines/ethernet circuits with speeds up to 10Gbps. Our customers range from charities and schools to small and medium sized companies, and on up to larger organisations with high bandwidth requirements.
“Our core business broadband packages are “Essential”, “Enhanced” and “Ethernet” with dedicated local account management, and excellent SLAs with local specialist engineering support. You can work with us directly or ask us to collaborate with your managed IT provider.
"When Lightning Fibre was established, we were the first full-fibre broadband operator in the town. It was incredibly exciting to bring a life-changing service to local people and businesses, replacing slow and unreliable copper connections with FTTP (Fibre to the Premises). It came at the right time too – with the rise in the number of devices in every property and then Covid changing our economy and so many people working from home.
"Eight years later, we're operating in an extraordinarily competitive market, competing with national brands who are now selling full fibre via a wholesaler's network. Where we're different is that we own the network and we're based in Eastbourne. So our biggest strengths are our local customer service and our local engineers! We've got an incredible 4.8 out of 5 ‘Excellent’ rating on Trustpilot - some of our big competitors are down at 1.2, so we really are streets apart in terms of customer experience.
"We're open 8am to 8pm and you can even come and see a real person in Eastbourne, there are no apps and AI bots to deal with! We answer the phones quickly, and we can get engineers out to you promptly. Lightning Fibre is also committed to supporting the communities we serve - we sponsor charity and community events (including Eastbourne DigiFest!), and the majority of our team live and work in the local area."
What are you most proud of right now?
"If we're staying on the customer service point, a few months ago we hit 5,000 Trustpilot reviews with an average score of 92 out of 100 - that's an incredible achievement and we're really proud of it. We’re now nearly at 5.5k reviews.
"We're also award-winning at a national level, even though we're a regional altnet (alternative network provider). We've just won the Customer Champion award in September 2026 at Connected Britain. Previous accolades include Best Customer Experience 2025 at the Internet Service Providers Association’s (ISPA) awards, and Best Consumer ISP for our size business in 2023, ’24 and ‘25 at the ISPA awards! A real testament to the professionalism, service and quality of our team and our network - we run at 100% uptime.
"The other very recent news that is delighting many local home owners, is that we have just extended our network to enable us to reach another 2,500 homes – in St Leonards, Hastings, Eastbourne, Hailsham and Tenterden. So we encourage you to check your postcode on our website again – if you have been waiting for a Lightning Fibre connection, we may be able to help you now!
And our leased lines/ethernet business connections are being very well received – we have just installed at Havelock Place in Hastings, which has six floors of purpose built office space available to rent.
What first drew you to Eastbourne DigiFest, and why did you decide to back this year's event?
"The reason we support Eastbourne DigiFest is that there's an obvious link in terms of technology, and we really like to support our local business community. Importantly, it’s offering a fantastic array of speakers that will bring excellent learning opportunities for people in business, as well as those learning about technology or moving careers.
"We feel very lucky to have an event like this in Eastbourne. It’s very professionally run and we are delighted to be part of it."
What does the local tech and digital scene in Eastbourne mean to you - why does an event like this matter for the town?
"Eastbourne is now really on the map for internet and full fibre access. Eastbourne is now ranked 22nd out of 650 constituencies in the UK for connectivity - so we're right up there in the top few percent of the country. We are really proud that Lightning Fibre has helped Eastbourne and neighbouring towns gain that level of connectivity.
"It means Eastbourne can be home to a lot of people now working from home and established businesses continue to grow their operations from this part of the county."
"Eastbourne is now really on the map for internet and full fibre access - it doesn't take a bigger city to have access to excellent technology and exciting events like Eastbourne DigiFest."
Looking back on previous DigiFest conferences, what's a moment or conversation that's stuck with you?
"Right from the very first Eastbourne DigiFest, everyone was blown away by the quality of the speakers and the style of the different sessions - the fireside talks, the workshops. It was a fantastic event for local businesses to gain insights they could take away and start implementing, which always feels great - helping make something understandable and actionable for people."
What are you hoping to get out of this year?
"We continue to enjoy attending the workshops ourselves, for our own personal development, and to see what we can apply to our own business. We always like to buy local, so meeting businesses withing the exhibition area is also really worthwhile.
"From a commercial point of view, we're really developing our business offering, so we're excited to share some new broadband packages with the local business community."
What would you say to someone who's on the fence about getting involved this year?
"I'd say Eastbourne DigiFest is absolutely worth the time out of the office. Schedule your day in advance so you don’t miss anything - there's such a great timetable of talks. And allow for networking and exhibition area time too! I'm sure you'll go back to the office with ideas to discuss with your colleagues.”
What three words would you use to describe Eastbourne DigiFest?
"Insightful. Fun. Community.”
We look forward to seeing everyone on the day!
Lightning Fibre continues to support Eastbourne DigiFest as the town's own home-grown broadband network, connecting residents and businesses across East Sussex. To meet them at the event, get your conference ticket now .
